Dorothy's Oral History

My name is Dorothy and I lived on North Indian Ruins Rd. and moved in here December 18, 1956  We moved to Tucson January 1, 1956.  At first we lived on Fourth Street just west of Country Club Rd. and then started house hunting. My husband was transferred by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to do laboratory work on honeybees so our house hunting ended up here in Indian Ridge. There were two or three lots available and we got one of them. You chose your home model and if it was going to be near another one just like it you might have to have it reversed or choose another one.   They tried not to make it look like cookie-cutter housing all the way along so the first and second houses are different than ours and then this one over here is different from ours, so it worked out rather nicely.  The houses were built or styled according to the way we could get the best view of the mountains so some were turned a little bit maybe about a quarter around but not always.  We had our choice of bricks or adobe blocks with the light wash finish on it which could either be light, medium or dark so we did have a lot of choices for an area and we didn’t look too much alike. They allowed us five one gallon cans and one five gallon can of shrubbery along with your choice of either grass or gravel which we chose gravel. We did have grass out here in the patio area.

Tucson was small but growing fast and Tanque Verde was a two lane road.  There was little or nothing built on Tanque Verde Road. There was a little three par golf course up on Tanque Verde as you come around the bend from Wilmot where all the office buildings are.  They wanted to make it into a shopping area, but they said no, it was in a flood plain. It was hilly and so forth, but then they ended up with office buildings. Where Trail Dust Town is now there was a stable and feed store, and there was a restaurant. I think it was called the Roadrunner.  But it had problems - it got burned down once or twice, and that was it as far as I can remember of businesses.  Then later on where the flat area was just west of the wash, they built a bowling alley after they got the zoning change for business. We had quite a fight with the developer who owned a lot of property along the road and wanted to get it zoned for business. It seem like almost every month we were going down to the Board of Supervisors meeting with the Country Club residences to fight zoning changes, but he could wait it out. He had the money and eventually we all got tired so we didn’t fight it as much. I guess the house on the corner of Indian Ruins went up for sale the developer bought it which gave him the vote for 51% that he needed.  Before that the only business that was there was Barney‘s gas station right at the entrance to the Country club. It was a Mobile Oil station.  For a while Tanque Verde was called “gasoline alley” because there was so many gasoline stations along here.  Then they kind of disappeared and we had restaurants so it became known as “restaurant row”.  The bowling alley that was on Tanque Verde just west of the wash had a fire. The roof fell in.  We all walked down and stayed on this side of the wash and the heat from the fire was unbelievable. We had the Tanque Verde Swap Meet that was so popular where Target is.

The nearest place for grocery shopping was a home owned grocery store called Food Giant at the corner of Pima and Craycroft. It was a small store, but it was very convenient. Otherwise we had to go in towards town. There was a shopping area called El Rancho which was big. It seems to me there was a Safeway maybe at Columbus.  Wilmot Plaza opened up with a Meyerson’s department store and he also owned Consumers Grocery which went in there also. It was very convenient area to have the shopping down at Wilmot Plaza. Then Monterey at Speedway at Wilmot was born and there was a Bayless that went in there and that made it even closer for us to shop at Bayless.  East of us there was little or nothing except maybe some guest ranches.

Our houses had gravel roofs with open beam ceiling so that when it rained pretty hard, you sure heard it.  We all had swamp coolers and we would get snow occasionally.  I think the monsoons we had more rain and winter times were colder. I remember the boys wearing flannel shirts to school. Traffic was almost nonexistent during the week and heavier on weekends of course with people going to Sabino Canyon or Mountain Lemon. We could stand out in front of the house and look west and see the outline of the T.M.C. buildings. There was nothing out there west of us when we first moved in.   There were three houses west of us on Topke but they were not Lusk homes and they just didn’t sell.  Finally some years later when Lusk bought the property over there, the houses did eventually sell. They were very nice houses.

There were different street names when it was first developed which lined up the city streets west of us in town.  Indian Ruins Road ended right near the road that went over to the ruins. There was a big ranch home in there which you couldn’t see it from the road, but my boys went to school with a girl that lived in there and it wasn’t really considered part of the ridge.  City buses came out to Speedway and Wilmot so we could drive in there, park your car and take the bus into town to shop. Downtown there was Jacome‘s Steinfeld’s, Penny’s, Montgomery Ward’s,  Sear’s and  Meyerson’s had the White House, which was just west of Stone on Congress and there was a lot of little shops. Cele Petersen was also downtown. There were real “five and dimes” -  Woolworth’s and Christie‘s and so forth.  We went downtown and did our shopping, and it was a treat. For recreation areas you went to Sabino Canyon and Mount Lemmon for picnics.  You could rent horses at the stable down here.

The reason we chose to live in Indian Ridge was because of the good resale value. My husband had a chance to be transferred at any time and you wanted to be able to sell your house. It was good resale and still is.  We had the room for a 16 cubic ft. chest type freezer which not that many houses around have a utility room. There were quite a few people from the University here that we knew so we weren’t going to be complete strangers coming in here. The other area that was being developed was down at Green Hills, but they were all sold out and then there was an area down off 22nd so there was a big influx on the east side during that time. I also loved the three way fireplace which acts as a divider by dividing the dining and living room but you can use it as a fireplace.

I do remember that the ladies had a garden club. Yes, it was started by a lady named Helen. She was very talented lady and a horticulture garden judge.  I think she lived on Kachina Court but moved out to Bear Canyon area later on.  It had a limited group of 25 members, Indian Ridge only and we met once a month in different homes.  We would have a speaker and we would have instructor. Helen would give many of the instructions on flower arranging along with corsage making.  I would beg for corsage making because I had two sons and when they got into high school I made the corsages for their dates. It was sort of like a little social club as well as being a garden club because most everyone came from someplace else and you had to know how to garden here so we had speakers come from the various nurseries like Catalina and Harlow’s, and so forth for someone from the University came and gave us information. Helen was very competitive person and when they’d have the big flower showing in the spring, Indian Ridge was entered in it.  Those of us who were very adaptive making arrangements would even have our own flower show here in the Ridge. I think three homes were decorated indoors and then we had outdoor exhibits. At Christmas time people would have their homes decorated for Christmas and then we would visit and there would be snacks and refreshments at each home. We used to decorate but not the way they do now.  Indian Ridge would offer a prize and they’d ask the garden club members to be the judges.  At Christmas time we drove around and looked at outdoor decorations. Luminaries are very new in just the past few years.  This would be the evening so it was almost like a social club as well as being a garden club to give us information. People came and went.  There was even one time a waiting list for membership.

Neighbors included employees at the University Medical Center and Davis Monthan Air Force Base. There were a few retirees here also. The first house on the corner was a retired naval officer, and then a Major from Davis Monthan.  There were quite a few from the University of Arizona and from Hughes. They were quite a few doctors living in here. I think it was on Taos that has a lot in a row.  It was called pill hill.  The doctors that I knew of had kids that went to school with some of my kids and in scouts  They were all connected with TMC because TMC was expanding then.  My boys went to Lizzie Brown which is now Dodge Middle School and they were so crowded that they put them on double sessions.  The children that could walk to school went in the morning and the children that had to be bussed  went in the afternoon.  The Fort Lowell school was not very full so they drew a line down the middle of Indian Ruins Road - everything east of it went to Lizzie Brown and everything went west went to Fort Lowell.  There was a lot of unhappy parents because of the change.  They thought the children would lose their friendships but they had after school and on weekends to meet their friends.  So both of our boys went to Lizzie Brown and then to Townsend and then Palo Verde. Our oldest son went four years to Palo Verde. Our younger son went to Palo Verde and graduated from Saguaro.  Palo Verde was full before they opened it and they were on double sessions also so we were up at five o’clock in the morning to get them off because at six or six thirty they started. We also had scouting – I was a Den Mother for both boys. When the kids were safely in school I had a part-time job with TUSD.  I was a cashier in one of the cafeteria. It was very part-time only 11:30 to 1:30 so I was home with the kids all the rest of the time.

Living out in the middle of nowhere we were more or less dependent on each other for entertainment. The garden club was our social club. We had the community pool. We did belong to the swimming pool but our boys weren’t actively on the team. We just used it for our own enjoyment.  We were on private water wells at first and the company was called “Hidden Wells” and there were three wells total.  One is in the back corner of our lot. I don’t remember where the other two were but they were all within the Ridge. The city took over some areas that were in the county and they were getting a better rate or something I don’t remember, but eventually, the city took over the wells and stopped using them so now we are on city water but for quite a few years we were on private wells.